Elliott Associate Professor of Biology Dr. Kristian M. Hargadon ’01 was recently awarded a $100,000 grant from the Jeffress Trusts Awards Program in Interdisciplinary Research to support his melanoma research program.  Funds from this grant will be used by Dr. Hargadon and his collaborating Hampden-Sydney College students to investigate anti-tumor CD8+ T cell dysfunction and the ways in which lymph node invasion by melanoma impacts the quality of tumor-specific CD8+ T cell immune responses.  Understanding these processes will shed light on mechanisms by which tumors evade immune destruction, and this knowledge may ultimately inform the design of novel immunotherapies that aim to improve the quality of anti-tumor immunity.